The Mad Circus Says Goodnight
by bounceparty
Summary: Kurt still doesn't trust Sebastian. He still hasn't forgiven Sebastian. He still dislikes him immensely. But after his headlights hit the crumpled, broken figure of Sebastian late one night, it is impossible for Kurt to hate him.


He hates the gym. Kurt doesn't like being sweaty, he doesn't like people seeing him sweaty, he doesn't like seeing sweaty people, and he doesn't like people who like being sweaty. But Rachel forced him to attend a Zumba class with her-Mr. Martinez suggested it-and he really hates to admit that he enjoyed it.

But now there's a bad remix of an Enrique Inglesias song stubbornly stuck in his head, no matter how loud he turns the radio up.

He's fiddling with the radio, trying to find a song that will indubitably get stuck in his head but would be better than Enrique when the light of his headlights catches the lone form of a figure curled up in the fetal position on the sidewalk half-under the yellow light of a streetlight.

Kurt slams on the brakes, a millisecond afterward hoping that there's not a car behind him.

He checks the mirror and slumps over in relief when there's only soft black emptiness behind his car.

Kurt puts the car in park, opens the door, and runs over to the person.

He notices the blood first.

Kneeling next to the guy, he asks, "hello?"

There's no answer and he thinks for a horrible moment that the guy is dead but no, there's a gentle rise and fall of his torso and he almost collapses to the ground in relief. He's not dead.

Then he looks, really looks at the guy, and fear slithers into his bones because that's a Warbler's uniform the guy's wearing, he can tell even though it's ripped and dirty and bloody, and though he hates most of the Warblers now there's still a few that he's friends with and what if it's one of them?

Kurt frantically turns the guy over and gasps.

The face is beaten almost into oblivion, but-

It's Sebastian.

His face is hideously swollen and purple and red and his lip is huge and there's blood sluggishly trickling from several cuts and gashes and scrapes on his face and neck and it's really disgusting.

Kurt stares at the mangled face of Sebastian, but he feels nothing. Kurt would welcome the seething, vicious, frightening anger he thought he would experience the next time he saw Sebastian. At the very least Kurt thought he was going to have to stop himself from spitting on that infuriating face.

But he feels nothing.

That's what scares Kurt, the feeling-nothing part.

As much as he loathes Sebastian and what he did to Blaine, what he tried to do to Kurt, Sebastian is still a person, a person who's been severely beaten, who probably needs medical care. Kurt isn't Sebastian. He's not going to just abandon a hurt kid on the side of the road in the middle of the night because of the horrid, evil things he's done.

But Kurt wants to walk away and get in his car and drive home and take a nice long hot shower and eat that bowl of ice cream he deserves after going to the gym and moisturize and go to sleep and not once think of Sebastian.

He feels nothing, aside from a bit of nausea from all that blood.

Kurt's eyes slide over Sebastian's figure, and when they return to his face Kurt sees Sebastian staring at him.

"Hello, Kurt," Sebastian mumbles, his voice curiously empty of the usual condescending, snobby, arrogant tone Kurt's never heard his voice without until this moment.

It's weird. This is weird.

A fat drop of blood appears at the corner of Sebastian's mouth and Kurt watches with some degree of morbid fascination as he dabs at it and stares at the blood on his finger tips.

Kurt wants to leave. He's extremely uncomfortable and besides, Sebastian's conscious and coherent and he's obviously alright despite the grotesque swelling and the eye swollen shut and the blood trickling down from several gashes on his face.

But Kurt can't move. He just stares at Sebastian.

He wonders what happened. It probably wasn't even a gay-bashing, and even if it was Kurt would have trouble drudging up any form of outrage. Sebastian's awful enough to antagonize anyone.

"Do I look as bad as I feel?" Sebastian asks, his swollen face contorting into a little half-smile.

"Could you just act like a normal human being?" The words fly out of Kurt's mouth before he can comprehend their existence in his voice box and he regrets saying them but at the same time he really doesn't at all.

Sebastian laughs, once, without humor. "I can't. I'm not normal," he says into the chilly winter air. "Normal people are likable. I'm not a likable person, you know. I'm not lovable."

Kurt knows that. He really does. And it gives him so much perverse pleasure that Sebastian knows it, too. But for some reason his mouth won't form around the caustic, hateful words that he wants to throw in Sebastian's face. He wants to hurt him, but he can't.

Sebastian's eyes grow distant and Kurt thinks for a second that he sees the glisten of tears in Sebastian's eyes under the streetlight. But no. Sebastian's not human enough to cry.

"And you know I just want someone to tell me that they love me and it's never happened before and do you know why kids get sent to boarding school, Kurt? It's because their parents don't like them or love them and can't stand them at all, really, especially if they're gay little faggot fuck-ups who bring nothing but shame and misery to their families."

He's getting weepy, almost, during this babbling rant, brought on by nothing, and Kurt is baffled by the horror beginning to churn in his stomach. Kurt's hand slips into his pocket and curls around his iPhone. He rubs the screen.

"And Kurt, did you know why I can't get expelled from another school? Get expelled once, you don't get to come home. Get expelled twice, you don't have a home. Isn't that clever? My mom always fancied herself to be clever."

Sebastian sounds like he's drunk and that would explain the tears and the slight, weird offness Kurt's getting from him. Yup, Sebastian's drunk, he has to be, and he's a definitely an emotional drunk and this is getting awkward and almost painful to watch.

He wonders why he hasn't left yet.

Sebastian stares emptily at some random spot behind Kurt.

"I'm a horrible person and a fuck-up and sometimes I wonder why I just don't kill myself because my dad is right, I only bring misery to everyone I meet and everyone hates me and I hate me."

Kurt's feeling uncomfortable at this point because he knows, he knows, that when someone says something like this, says that they're suicidal, you've got to get them help, even if you hate them, but he doesn't want to believe it.

Sebastian tries gets to his feet and promptly falls over with a hiss and Kurt decides he's right about Sebastian. He's drunk and he obviously got into a fight of some sort and although Kurt has learned a few new things about Sebastian they don't really change his opinion of him or magically erase what he's done to him and Blaine so he's basically just wasted his time here.

But he's mulling the idea of offering Sebastian a ride back to Dalton because damn it Kurt's a nice person and he doesn't know how else Sebastian will get there. The more he thinks about it the more he decides that yes, he has to ask Sebastian if he wants a ride even though Kurt honestly thinks he's entitled to just leave him here, for all he's done.

"I could...I could take you back to Dalton, if you want," Kurt hesitantly says.

Sebastian's eyes fly to his face and the expression of pure surprise kind of strikes Kurt as funny.

Is he really surprised that Kurt isn't going to just desert him here? Does he not comprehend that there's actually morality on this earth, that everyone doesn't act how Sebastian does?

"Really?" he asks. The vulnerability in his voice burns.

Kurt nods, extending a hand out to him.

Sebastian hesitates for a moment and then grasps it. His hand is so cold.

Kurt pulls him up and hopes he's not hurting him.

They both walk to Kurt's car and Kurt notices that Sebastian is walking kind of weirdly and Kurt wants to ask if he's okay but there's this weird sensation of wrongness permeating his skin and he's almost unable to speak because there's an idea sitting heavy on the tip of his tongue and he tries to swallow it down because the idea is so horrifically impossible that he'd rather not even think about it. He's being silly.

Sebastian gets to the car door and and then a car passes by and its headlights highlight the both of them and that's when Kurt sees the blood staining the back of his pants. There's enough of it that even through the dark fabric there's a large visible blood stain and it's right in that area and oh no. No, that's impossible.

Kurt feels like he's been shot in the throat.

He must have made some sort of noise because Sebastian turns around and his face goes white like he knows what Kurt saw.

"Were you..." Kurt breathes hoarsely, not even able to finish the sentence. He already knows the answer.

After a few moments Sebastian's eyes grow comically wide and to Kurt's alarm he buries his face in his hands, crushing his fingers against his eye sockets-Kurt knows he must be causing himself deliberate pain-and emits the most pitiful and gut-wrenching sound he has ever heard.

Kurt watches, horrified, as Sebastian's knees buckle underneath him and he collapses to the pavement, sliding down the metal surface of the car door with a whispering sound. Sebastian reaches out to balance himself with his hands, revealing a face smeared with tears and blood from the cut over his eye.

Before he quite knows what he is doing Kurt has sunk to one knee before him and reaches out with both hands to steady him. Sebastian meets his eyes, more surprise in his expression than Kurt finds flattering, and Kurt—

Kurt doesn't know what to think, he can't think, because he feels like the world has been tipped upside down and shaken violently.

Sebastian's mouth opens and closes like a dying fish gasping for air.

"You've got to believe me, it wasn't my fault," he croaks. "I didn't want it. I told them no. You've got to believe me."

Sebastian looks at him, with these eyes, these guilt-stricken, sad eyes, and Kurt is hit with the realization that Sebastian's mental state rests upon Kurt believing him.

Sebastian doesn't deserve kindness from Kurt.

But he deserves common decency.

"I believe you," Kurt says, with as much firmness as he can muster.

Sebastian's body sags against the car and his eyes close for a few seconds.

Kurt feels like he's going to vomit.

"I don't know why you're here, you've always hated me, why are you still here?" Sebastian blurs, his eyes flying open, like he's just thought of something.

Kurt barely knows himself, but he knows he has to say something because Sebastian looks like he's about to become hysterical.

"...I would do this for anybody," he finally says. It's true, but he doesn't think it'll be enough.

But apparently that's enough for Sebastian and he nods and lets Kurt help him back up and into the passenger seat.

Sebastian winces when he sits down and Kurt wonders how bad the pain is. He doesn't want to know.

Kurt goes around to his side and gets in and starts the car and the radio starts blaring, a stupid, inane pop song about loving life, and the music is so unbearably happy and so wrong that Kurt can't turn the radio off fast enough.

But the silence is kind of worse.

They pull out onto the street and Kurt knows deep in his bones that he has to take Sebastian to the hospital now, instead of Dalton. But he doesn't know how to tell Sebastian that because who knows how he'll react.

He looks out of the corner of his eye at Sebastian. Silent tears are dripping down his face and Kurt swallows heavily because for the first time he finally feels sympathy for Sebastian because he did not deserve this. The beating, maybe. But Sebastian didn't deserve to be raped.

Kurt thinks he should say something or do something but this situation is alien to him and words wouldn't change anything and there's really nothing he can do to fix this.

He wonders when Sebastian will realize that they're going the opposite direction from where Dalton is.

Sebastian suddenly sits up straight and looks out the window.

"I thought you were taking me back to Dalton," Sebastian says, his voice high with panic.

"You need...you need to go to the hospital," Kurt stammers.

"Please just take me to Dalton, don't take me to the hospital," Sebastian pleads. Kurt can hear the tears in his voice. "I'll be okay, I'll be okay, just please don't take me to the hospital. Please."

There's something about the way he says "please" that makes Kurt think that he's said it before in that same desperate way and has been ignored.

The urge to do what Sebastian asks is almost overwhelming because oh god Sebastian is almost begging him and he doesn't want to be like whoever did this to Sebastian, though he knows that taking him to the hospital is right.

"I'm sorry," Kurt says softly. And he means it.

Kurt looks over and Sebastian has his hand over his mouth, his chest shaking, and the car is suddenly filled with the sound of Sebastian's muffled sobs.

They drive and Sebastian cries and Kurt wants to make it stop but there's nothing he can do.

The sharp, sudden absence of sound happens before Kurt pulls into the parking lot. He looks over again and Sebastian's face is heart-wrenching, he looks so scared. He's too scared to cry, and Kurt swallows down the lump in his throat.

Kurt finds a spot and parks and turns off the ignition. They both sit in silence for a minute.

His phone vibrates and he's got a text and it's probably Blaine, asking about the-Blaine. How is he going to tell Blaine about this? Kurt hopes he'll understand. But Blaine will.

"Do you...do you think you could..." Sebastian's voice is hoarse and filled with unshed tears and Kurt still doesn't trust him, still hasn't forgiven him, but he suddenly doesn't hate him anymore and the absence of that burning hate that's been sitting inside his chest cavity for so long is unsettling.

Kurt turns his head, waiting for Sebastian to continue.

"Could you go in with me?" he asks, his voice quiet and ashamed and it breaks at the end and-

Hot tears spring to Kurt's eyes and he tries to blink them away but one slides down his cheek and

Kurt hates hospitals. He hates them, so, so much. He swore when his dad was discharged that he'd never set foot in another one unless it was a life or death situation.

"Yeah," he says. "I'll go."


End file.
